In Theory:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 this week to overturn a lower court’s decision and allow a Latin cross to continue to be displayed on federal land in the California desert. The cross was placed in 1934 at a spot in the Mojave National Preserve by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor fallen World War I soldiers. A lawsuit, filed by a regular visitor to the area who was offended by the display of a religious symbol on public land, argued that this violates the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Do you think that this lawsuit takes the debate of the separation of church and state too far because the cross stands in such a remote location? And do you think that the memories of the fallen soldiers would have been desecrated had the High Court ordered instead that the cross be removed?

This indeed is a slippery slope. If the Supreme Court had decided the opposite, then a clear message would have been set to support [that] the separation of church and state continue to enforce Jefferson’s “Wall.” Now that they’ve cracked open the door, many more suits will be forthcoming to have religionists of all creeds. I’m curious to see how Christians react when a Muslim or Buddhist symbol appears on government land.

Bruce Gleason

Atheist

Backyardskeptics.com

This is a complicated case. This cross was erected on private land, later made into a National Preserve, and negotiations were to return this to private land in a “swap.” Therefore it is not a good case to elicit responses relative to “separation of church and state.” This is a memorial to fallen military from World War I and does not constitute a “religious symbol.”

A newspaper columnist recently wrote: “No one can possibly believe that a cross on a war memorial in the desert that happens to be on federal land means that the government has decreed that Christianity is the official religion of the United States.”

As a veteran, I don’t care if this plaintiff is offended. These are petty and time-wasting diversions from what should be truly important in our lives.

Tom Thorkelson

Director of Interfaith Relations, Orange County Council

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Wearing a cross does not make one Christian. Eating kosher food does not make one Jewish. Singing Hare KrishnaHare Krishna like George Harrison does make one Hindu. Locating a cross on a piece of ground neither establishes Christianity nor hallows the ground itself.

But humans need symbols to honor and remember our deceased loved ones. So we cover street corners with candles and flowers, write names on memorial walls and quilts, put crosses on hilltops, light eternal flames at death camps, and turn battle fields into national parks. The symbols have to be deep enough to hold our tears and lift our spirits. The cross is one of those collective symbols.

Removing the symbols is not likely to disturb the dead, but will leave our souls restless, disconnected, and with a grief unresolved. And I fear that if we do not honor the dead, neither will we honor the living.

Pastor Mark Wiley

Mesa Verde United Methodist Church

As a Christian, I am not offended by crosses in memory of the dead. There are others who find the cross offensive, and so it may not be appropriate on common land. We must consider how we honor the past, but consciously acknowledge separation of church and state, paying attention to the reality that we are not a Christian nation. What is most important is that we do not lose sight of the purpose of remembering those who have died, particularly those who died in war.

The Rev. Sarah Halverson

Fairview Community Church

Costa Mesa

Though I have not read the reasoning behind the high court’s decision, I am in agreement with the decision. We have become a society where people seem to be easily offended, and by appeasing one group, another group is slighted.

Had the court ordered the cross to be removed, families of fallen soldiers would rightly have been upset. Outside of moral absolutes, expecting the country or world to conform to our tastes is an unreasonable expectation. No religion is being established by having the cross at the memorial.

Could I not argue that the atheists’ demands that no religious symbols be present is offensive — that somehow they are forcing their “beliefs” (or lack of them) on me? Unfortunately, lawsuits like these are not going away, and Christians must stand up for our beliefs — always in a balanced way.

Fr. Stephen Doktorczyk

St. Joachim Church

Costa Mesa

Was Christianity the religion espoused and practiced by all of the troops who fought in World War I? Would Jewish soldiers want to be memorialized by a cross? Doesn’t this memorial declare that the faiths of non-Christians who served their country and the cause of freedom are of no account and that the Jewish dead are to be retroactively baptized?

A song with martial associations features the lyric: “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.”

It is one thing to be a soldier for Christ, as Christians should be, but it is another to presume that all soldiers who fought in the war followed the cross into the trenches. Death is the greatest democracy. People of different faiths were among the 117,000 Americans who gave “the last full measure of selfless devotion.”

Rabbi Mark S. Miller

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

I think the U.S. Supreme Court ruled correctly. I am puzzled why the ruling was 9 to 0. The cross that has stood in the desert for 76 years had obviously not established a state religion, so I fail to see the validity of the complaint in the first place. This is another example of a Christian Nation that has forgotten who made us great.

“We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”

By the way, please do not criticize me for that last statement. It isn’t mine, it is Abraham Lincoln’s from March 30, 1863. I think it is obvious that he would have voted with the majority opinion.

Pastor Dwight Tomlinson

Liberty Baptist Church

Newport Beach